Overheat ? PC Freezes non-stop !

[Soulgolem]

Hello, I am having serious problems with my computer at the moment, and i would appreciate any help possible. Here is what's going on :

Last summer, my computer started having these regular freeze ups, the mouse would stop moving, everything would be frozen, only a restart would help the situation. If audio was playing, then a loud constant noise would come out until i press the reset button. I figured it was a heat problem since the temperature was affecting these happenings.

I then gradually lowered the resolution and removed programs to avoid the pc overheating, but it seems it would get worse in time. I was pretty busy at school recently, but managed to format it but this didn't help at all, now I'm stuck with my outside fan next to the tower box with the lowest resolution, I also can't play audio or video or put the heater too high or the freeze will come. It also takes around 2 start ups until one works without automatically restarting.

I individually checked the fans I could and the fan beneath what i believe to be the videocard is turning fan, the big fan on the motherboard also, and the one behind the power supply also is turning. In Speedfan software, out of two fans, it says one is turning at 0 RPM. In the provided with the motherboard ASUSprobe software, it comes up with Power fan and Chassis fan not monitored by default, but when i turn them on, it says that they are not turning. In both softwares, the tempratures of everything do not seem to be alarming at all.

Also the interior of my tower is very dusty and when i bump it a little, sometimes i hear a fan making a loud rusty sound struggling to turn for about a minute, but then it goes back to normal in time. Can this be cleaned ? it's pretty sticky dust.

So the softwares tell me temperature is fine, but the problems occur when I overheat the surround area, when I absolutely need to use audio or video, I usually open the window (it's winter here) and it works half the time. I will need to change parts, that i'm sure of, but i'm not sure how to proceed to find out what is problematic. And bringing it to a repair person... well considering my pc is not a big value now, i'm thinking it's worthless to send it for repairs, they might charge me a lot for replacement parts, and take awful lot of time to make the actual repairs. I need my pc fixed and working for an audio recording project, and now's my vacations.

Thank you for any advice.

Francis.

PC info :

Intel P4 2.4Ghz Processor

ASUS P4S533-VM Motherboard

ASUS GeForce4 MX 440-8x 64MB

512 Mb RAM Memory

80gig Maxtor Hard Drive

Soundblaster Live Soundcard

Thanks.

[Jeremy]

1. Take your case outside, grab your can of compressed air, and unleash a storm.

2. Clean out all the fans, and if necessary, replace them.

3. Have a strong 120mm fan to blow warm air out of the case and a 80mm fan blowing cool air into the case.

4. Re-arrange the cables in your case, use twist-ties, elastics, whatever, bundle them into empty drive holders or in corners. Having as much out of the way as possible can literally make a difference of 2oC in your case.

5. Upgrade your CPU heatsink, but make sure it is compatible with the socket and that there is enough room for it, so it is not blocking any needed slots/connectors on your mobo.

6. Use Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste for your heatsink. Put 3/4 the size of a grain of rice onto the center of the CPU, put a small piece of thin plastic over your finger and spread it over the entire surface of the CPU.

7. Vacuum the room frequently. Dust collects, too much dust can conduct electricity. Also, do not keep the case on carpeted floor, put something non-conductive under it or put it on a desk if it isn't already.

Hardware wise you might consider new parts, including a case. I recommend getting:

The Antec Sonata II

The Antec SLK2650-BQE Mid Tower

The Antec P180 Mid Tower

You might try and locate those cases on tigerdirect or newegg.

Thje reason why I recommend Antec is because the cases are made nice, the included fans and strong and quiet, some come with a built-in PSU, and Antec makes good PSUs, and Antec just plain and simply knows how to make good cases.

Cheers,

Jeremy

Edited December 29, 2005 by Jeremy

[ripken204]

wow, clean the dust out!

step 1 of what jeremy said should fix all of ur problems.

also, what are your idle/load temps?

[Tarun]

Sounds exactly like what happened to me a few years ago. It turned out to be a bad hard drive.

[ripken204]

also check in the event viewer for any errors

Edited December 29, 2005 by ripken204

[Jeremy]

Also the interior of my tower is very dusty and when i bump it a little, sometimes i hear a fan making a loud rusty sound struggling to turn for about a minute, but then it goes back to normal in time. Can this be cleaned ? it's pretty sticky dust.

Sounds exactly like what happened to me a few years ago. It turned out to be a bad hard drive.

Uhm, doesn't sound like a bad hard drive at all. Dust

[LLXX]

Also the interior of my tower is very dusty and when i bump it a little, sometimes i hear a fan making a loud rusty sound struggling to turn for about a minute, but then it goes back to normal in time. Can this be cleaned ? it's pretty sticky dust.

Your fan bearings are dying. What you need is a set of new ones.

[kartel]

I would unmount all fans and clean them and vacuum out the case and board.

Clean the cpu heatsink with water and a toothbrush dry it and give everything a good wipe with a damp cloth. Of coure with the unit unplugged and hit tho power button for a few seconds to make sure its dead.

http://www.tricitycomputers.net/Photos.html

Edited December 29, 2005 by kartel

[Jeremy]

Use isopropyl alcohol to clean the heatsink. It takes whatever's on there right off.

[Vitalix]

Cleaning out the case would certainly help the temperature situation, but from what you are describing, it sounds like you have either a loose CPU heatsink, bad memory, or some corrupt sectors on your hard drive. You can do a thorough check of your hard drive by right clicking and using the tools. Windows will tell you it will have to do it at boot to get access to the drive. Reboot. Let it do its thing.

You might want to download SP2004 (Google it) and run it. It is a burn-in/benchmark software like Prime95.

Try a test to attack the memory. Let it run. If it's solid for over an hour, your memory is fine.

Next, put a load on the CPU. If the CPU heatsink is loose, your CPU will get too hot and the motherboard will shut the system down.

If both are good, and your HD is good, the the problem is likely the power supply.

Also, any consistencies in the event viewer for Windows right before these reboots in either the application or system log?

[Soulgolem]

My pc's cured !! totally cured, no matter what I put it through, turns out it was the video card, removed it !! Thanks for the advice !